Humans Nearly Went Extinct 1.2M Years Ago

Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has a story on researchers from the University of Utah who have calculated that 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors Homo erectus, H. ergaster, and archaic H. sapiens were spreading through Africa, Europe, and Asia, there were probably only about 18,500 individuals capable of breeding in all these species together (PNAS paper here). Pre-humans were an endangered species with a smaller population than today's gorillas and chimpanzees. Researchers scanned two completely sequenced modern human genomes for a type of mobile element called Alu sequences, then compared the nucleotides in these old regions with the overall diversity in the two genomes to estimate differences in effective population size, and thus genetic diversity between modern and early humans. Human geneticist Lynn Jorde says that the diminished genetic diversity one million years ago suggests human ancestors experienced a catastrophic event at that time as devastating as the Toba super-volcano in Indonesia that triggered a nuclear winter and is thought to have nearly annihilated humans 70,000 years ago."

Comments

Re:Pfft...

[flyneye]

I'm actually more of a theoretical physics fan, but, I'd take this a lot more seriously as would philanthropists and religious factions (Christians aren't the only religious skeptics), if the words, perhaps, might have, could have and maybe weren't dished around in this wing of science quite as much. Even a devolved proto-monkey like Bill Clinton was able to extemporize what the meaning of "is ", is.
        Believe me ,it's not just the faithful, but, also the more enthusiastic, usually students of the archeological community, who appear to be,.. well...wishful.

Re:"Nuclear" Winter

[rickb928]

Only a temporary solution. After a few generations, we would be back to burning coal in stoves. From there, making engines for the raising of water by fire, and in no timne we're tooling around in internal combustion engine-driven vehicles again. At best, maybe a 200 year respite, and we are right back to exaggerating the claims of global warming.

There is only one solution to the global warming problem. Critical analysis of valid data, and making correct decisions based on the best available information. We are getting closer to that. Thermonuclear war is not the best solution. Impoverishing the developed world probably isn't either, but it is not yet so obvious that it is a well-understood joke.